2018-09-25

Bob and Richard and the mighty [sh|tw]it storm

DSC_0905 Not since Wadhams put forth his power has there been such a fuss:
On the plus side, I get to re-use my amusing picture which (despite the link) I'm fairly sure comes from the Franz Senn Hutte.

The story so far


The IPCC has another draft of another report. Learning nothing from the past, they're apparently surprised that it has been leaked. Yawn. But since it is a new IPCC report, people are bound to disagree on whether it downplays risks, exaggerates them, or gets them about right. Bob Ward sez Downplaying the worst impacts of climate change has led the scientific authors to omit crucial information from the summary for policymakers1, and naturally enough finds a ready audience in the Graun / Observer for this kind of stuff. Richard Betts (and Myles!) reject such under the headline Climate scientists reject ‘offensive’ claim of US, Saudi meddling in landmark report. Bob fires back with inevitable accusations of policing. Can things get worse?

It gets nasty


Yes, of course they can! Bob calls Richard a hypocrite and Richard calls Bob a bully and "not a friend to climate scientists" (which I think he's likely to regret, so here's an arch). Bob returns Your accusation of bullying may impress your friends in in the 'sceptic' community and surely that's a Tweet he's going to regret. In fact I hope he's going to have the sense to delete it, so here's an archive.

Is there yet hope?


Can Bob and Richard pull back from the brink before cannibalism sets in? From the point of view of popcorn I'm hoping not. Will they go nuclear? Maybe Dilbert can guide us.
 

Notes


1. Characteristically, the arguments are about the SPM. After all, who reads the actual text?

Refs


WILL RISING SEAS SINK THE SPANISH MAIN? - The Brethren of the Somali Coast are askin how they can survive keelhauling  if  temperatures in yer Arabian Sea off Hormuz  rise five degrees  past blood heat? Though I'm less sure about The Red Sea rig.
* Fear Climate Change — and Our Response to It - Bloomberg - Global warming will be expensive, and humanity’s irrational reaction may make it even more so; Tyler Cowen.

5 comments:

Andy Mitchell said...

I'm with the dog on the spelling of cannibal- er - thingy.

Tom said...

Well, I don't like Mr. Ward. And I do like Mr. Betts (he said nice things about the book I wrote with Mosher.) So it's easy to choose sides on this.

Maybe too easy.So I'll wait.

William M. Connolley said...

I've decided to go with the dog, too (the "i" was an "a", for anyone wondering after the fix).

I think RB's "not a friend" was probably a mistake, but overall I'm with him not BW on this. You'll probably be reassured to know that Eli is with Bob.

Richard is still going with Eli, but Bob rather sensibly seems to have entered a quiet phase. The "friends in in the 'sceptic' community" tweet remains unwisely undeleted though.

Everett F Sargent said...

Dogbert after the IPCC neuters him ...

"I think I can postpone Canineibalism"

Ho Ho Ho

"Climate study ‘pulls punches’ to keep polluters on board" should be ...

"Climate study ‘pulls no punches’ to keep humanity on board"

This happens each and every time, "The IPCC is ... blah blah blah ... way too ... blah blah blah ... conservative."

BW version of the 1.5C IPCC report ... We're fucked!

Rest of world agrees with BW version of 1.5C IPCC report. Rest of world then goes ... Well then, why even try?

Everyone goes home to 1st break and then throw all their toys out of the pram.

BW is rather unhappy that simply changing words into scary words did not change things at all.

EliRabett said...

If you were a Sitzpinkler rather than a manly Stehpinkler you would not need a Toilettenbuerstenbenutzungsanweisung. That is all

Eli was more interested in the proposition that stuff written for governments should be more forward looking so they could do something about it, rather than only looking at the baked in stuff.